


did you know?

by orphan_account



Series: Soulmates AU [2]
Category: Marvel
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:06:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22984504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Tony watched the bike take off, with it, the obnoxious vroom of its ancient engine. His right hip tingled, aching for contact and he pushed his shades up his nose bridge and jumped into the driver’s seat.He’s 100% sure Steve Rogers had no idea what they meant to each other.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: Soulmates AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1651798
Comments: 4
Kudos: 138





	did you know?

It’s a fairy tale concept was what Howard always said. His mother never encouraged him but she didn’t exactly stop him either like her husband. Jarvis on the other hand, only had nice things to say about it.

Ana and him were the kind of people Tony drifted off to sleep thinking about.

He had a delicate cursive circling around his wrist spelling out Ana’s wedding vows and she had his.

Tony wished he would have something akin when he finds his as well.

Until actual letters burned into the stretch of skin overlying his right hipbone one day and when he finally stripped out of the armour to look, it spelled an awful comment that made him reconsider Howard’s opinion – which was absolutely not a path to take – about soulmates, so he yanked his shirt down and forced himself to forget.

He carried nuke through the wormhole. He breathed nothing but space for a minute. When he opened his eyes again, he was looking into his soulmate’s.

Tony watched the bike take off, with it, the obnoxious vroom of its ancient engine. His right hip tingled, aching for contact and he pushed his shades up his nose bridge and jumped into the driver’s seat.

He’s 100% sure Steve Rogers had no idea what they meant to each other.

It’s what spurred him to carry on. The lack of the burden perhaps – thinking what his soulmate didn’t know, wouldn’t hurt him – because Tony knew, if Rogers had something of Tony’s tattooed on him, he would rip the skin off rather than accept it.

Rogers hated him that much.

The words on his skin were burning testament for that.

When SHIELD went down and Rogers with it, he had to physically lock himself in the workshop – overriding his own commands – so he’ll never go find him. Rogers would rather die than have Tony as his soulmate.

Might as well, give him no additional reasons for not recovering, is what he told himself.

And he lived with struggles. Peppers’ knowing eyes turning into lingering gaze of disappointment and blazing anger. Tony took cover from it all.

He knew she knew. She’s too smart after all.

But she wouldn’t get it. Not when her own wrist glimmered with Happy’s _Miss Potts_ inside and made her smile even during her worse days.

So when one day JARVIS alerted him to Rogers’ presence in the penthouse, he buried all his nerves, yanked harder at his shirt and went to see what he wanted.

Rogers had Romanoff and Hill flanking him. A picture of complete authority and for a second it felt like Captain America was there to arrest Tony.

Except when they spoke, it was bargaining – a discussion about business, something about forming Avengers away from the clasp of SHIELD.

“We’ll operate independently,” Hill proposed meticulously. Romanoff was stiff as a board in her seat, despite however hard she faked to lounge comfortably.

Tony looked at Rogers. Who looked like he wanted to be anywhere but there.

Yet another part of him ached and he braved on; with his dashing camera ready smile, he said, sure. “ _Whatever Cap wants.”_ Because apparently, no matter how much he wanted to deny it, he was a sentimentalist at best. And the young Tony within him, the one who dreamt of his soulmate every night wishing they’d get married and live happily ever after like Ana and Jarvis one day, _he loved Steve._

That’s how the Avengers moved into his tower. That’s how many memories were made. That’s how Ultron happened. And that’s how Tony got his heart broken.

Again.

All that. Made him bitter.

He agreed to sign the Accords because he cannot trust himself anymore.

Steve on the other hand –

He refused to compromise where he cannot and he stood tall in Leipzig, flying away in stolen Quinjet with his old buddy Bucky while his own _soulmate_ , Tony dropped beside a fallen Rhodey – unconscious head on his lap and Tony wondered with horror what were these all worth.

So he tried to amend.

He tried trusting Steve instead but that ended with a shield embedded into his arc reactor.

Civil war. Was what they dubbed the great break up.

Tony personally liked the ring of, _‘the end.’_

And he moved on.

Until Banner dropped from the sky – literally – and ruined it all.

“Call him.” He urged.

Tony wanted to bite his tongue and swallow it than press that button.

But he did. Even if the sound of Rogers voice after two years made the soulmark burn hot on his skin, he _did._

He swallowed. Opened his mouth, and swallowed again when nothing came out. Banner looked at him like he’d grown a tail so he thrusted the phone into his hand and watched as the roof of the New York sanctum flew away.

He didn’t think he was going to die when he hopped into the donut shaped alien space ship.

He didn’t think he was going to survive either.

He only had one thing in his mind. And that was to save Earth and the humanity with it.

Even when Thanos threw a moon at his face, he fought on.

For humanity.

For earth.

Even adrift in space, he fought on.

Until his body gave out on him and light glowed brighter than the sun in front of him.

For a second, he truly believed that was _it_.

But fate had another plan for him as she landed him in front of his soulmate.

The mate who hated him - except Rogers looked anything but like he did, running towards him.

“Tony, _we_ lost.” He said when Tony told him about Pete – his heart hurting in his chest. An agony not meant to die down anytime soon.

“Tony, I need you to focus.” He demanded when Tony, with his aching bones and even more aching heart brushed away Steve’s ‘pressing’ questions of Thanos’ whereabouts.

Something in Tony snapped.

“And I _needed_ you.” He spat.

What left of his body thrumming in hurt as he lashed at the man in front of him. “I got nothing for you, Cap. I got no coordinates, no clues, no strategies, no options, zero, zip, nada.”

“No trust.”

“ _Liar_.”

The anger within him shrivelled when Steve came to find him later. Arc reactor in his hand as he sat on the edge of Tony’s bed in silence.

Tony thought over and over how much he hated Steve. But he knew he was wrong.

It was the hurt speaking. It was resentment filling in the void where Steve and him supposed to belong. The burn of his soulmark reminding him of rejection and pain continuously.

So much _pain._

“Did you know?” Steve asked after sometime. The unexpected question attracting Tony’s attention to him. And despite the lack of context, Tony _knew_ what Steve was asking about.

In his mind however, he’s back in Siberia again.

The tape of Maria being choked to death stopped playing and he’s asking Rogers the exact question. _“Did you know?”_

And what a twist it was.

Steve _knew_ back then and _now_ , Tony did.

But he got nothing to lose after everything. He lost half of the universe. He failed to stop Thanos.

He lost _Peter._

So he removed the layers of blankets from his right side, shifted the robe, lifted the shirt up and he watched as Rogers swallowed thickly, fingers fisting around the sharp edges of Tony’s arc reactor;

_**I know guys with none of that and worth ten of you** _

Moments later, Rogers stood up, lifted the shirt up his left hip and showed; 

_**Liar** _

Bold and black in all capitals which stabbed right through the remaining wall of Tony’s heart.

Five years later, when Tony snapped Thanos and his army into dusts, he proved Steve’s words on his skin _wrong._

When Steve resuscitated Tony, did everything it took to bring him back to life and nursed him back to full health, he proved Tony’s word on his hip _false_.

Tony Stark is worth the _universe_ and Steve Rogers can keep his words; to be there for Tony, to face life and death _together_.


End file.
